“In my opinion it is a most arbitrary and degrading enactment,” said Samoval. “I say so without hesitation, notwithstanding my profound admiration and respect for Lord Wellington and all his measures.”
“Degrading?” echoed Grant, looking across at him. “In what can it be degrading, Count?”
“In that it reduces a gentleman to the level of the clod,” was the prompt answer. “A gentleman must have his quarrels, however sweet his disposition, and a means must be afforded him of settling them.”
“Ye can always thrash an impudent fellow,” opined the adjutant.
“Thrash?” echoed Samoval. His sensitive lip curled in disdain. “To use your hands upon a man!” He shuddered in sheer disgust. “To one of my temperament it would be impossible, and men of my temperament are plentiful, I think.”
“But if you were thrashed yourself?” Tremayne asked him, and the light in his grey eyes almost hinted at a dark desire to be himself the executioner.
Samoval’s dark, handsome eyes considered the captain steadily. “To be thrashed myself?” he questioned. “My dear Captain, the idea of having hands laid upon me, soiling me, brutalising me, is so nauseating, so repugnant, that I assure you I should not hesitate to shoot the man who did it just as I should shoot any other wild beast that attacked me. Indeed the two instances are exactly parallel, and my country’s courts would uphold in such a case the justice of my conduct.”
“Then you may thank God,” said O’Moy, “that you are not under British jurisdiction.”
“I do,” snapped Samoval, to make an instant recovery: “at least so far as the matter is concerned.” And he elaborated: “I assure you, sirs, it will be an evil day for the nobility of any country when its Government enacts against the satisfaction that one gentleman has the right to demand from another who offends him.”
“Isn’t the conversation rather too bloodthirsty for a luncheon-table?” wondered Lady O’Moy. And tactlessly she added, thinking with flattery to mollify Samoval and cool his obvious heat: “You are yourself such a famous swordsman, Count.”
And then Tremayne’s dislike of the man betrayed him into his deplorable phrase.
“At the present time Portugal is in urgent need of her famous swordsmen to go against the French and not to increase the disorders at home.”
A silence complete and ominous followed the rash words, and Samoval, white to the lips, pondered the imperturbable captain with a baleful eye.
“I think,” he said at last, speaking slowly and softly, and picking his words with care, “I think that is innuendo. I should be relieved, Captain Tremayne, to hear you say that it is not.”
Tremayne was prompt to give him the assurance. “No innuendo at all. A plain statement of fact.”
“The innuendo I suggested lay in the application of the phrase. Do you make it personal to myself?”
“Of course not,” said Sir Terence, cutting in and speaking sharply. “What an assumption!”
“I am asking Captain Tremayne,” the Count insisted, with grim firmness, notwithstanding his deferential smile to Sir Terence.
“I spoke quite generally, sir,” Tremayne assured him, partly under the suasion of Sir Terence’s interposition, partly out of consideration for the ladies, who were looking scared. “Of course, if you choose to take it to yourself, sir, that is a matter for your own discretion. I think,” he added, also with a smile, “that the ladies find the topic tiresome.”
“Perhaps we may have the pleasure of continuing it when they are no longer present.”
“Oh, as you please,” was the indifferent answer. “Carruthers, may I trouble you to pass the salt? Lady O’Callaghan was complaining the other night of the abuse of salt in Portuguese cookery. It is an abuse I have never yet detected.”
“I can’t conceive Lady O’Callaghan complaining of too much salt in anything, begad,” quoth O’Moy, with a laugh. “If you had heard the story she told me about—”
“Terence, my dear!” his wife checked him, her fine brows raised, her stare frigid.
“Faith, we go from bad to worse,” said Carruthers. “Will you try to improve the tone of the conversation, Miss Armytage? It stands in urgent need of it.”
With a general laugh, breaking the ice of the restraint that was in danger of settling about the table, a semblance of ease was restored, and this was maintained until the end of the repast. At last the ladies rose, and, leaving the men at table, they sauntered off towards the terrace. But under the archway Sylvia checked her cousin.
“Una,” she said gravely, “you had better call Captain Tremayne and take him away for the present.”
Una’s eyes opened wide. “Why?” she inquired.
Miss Armytage was almost impatient with her. “Didn’t you see? Resentment is only slumbering between those men. It will break out again now that we have left them unless you can get Captain Tremayne away.”
Una continued to look at her cousin, and then, her mind fastening ever upon the trivial to the exclusion of the important, her glance became arch. “For whom is your concern? For Count Samoval or Ned?” she inquired, and added with a laugh: “You needn’t answer me. It is Ned you are afraid for.”
“I am certainly not afraid for him,” was the reply on a faint note of indignation. She had reddened slightly. “But I should not like to see Captain Tremayne or any other British officer embroiled in a duel. You forget Lord Wellington’s order which they were discussing, and the consequences of infringing it.”
Lady O’Moy became scared.
“You don’t imagine—”
Sylvia spoke quickly: “I am certain that unless you take Captain Tremayne away, and at once, there will! be serious trouble.”
And now behold Lady O’Moy thrown into a state of alarm that bordered upon terror. She had more reason than Sylvia could dream, more reason she conceived than Sylvia herself, to wish to keep Captain Tremayne out of trouble just at present. Instantly, agitatedly, she turned and called to him.
“Ned!” floated her silvery voice across the enclosed garden. And again: “Ned! I want you at once, please.”
Captain Tremayne rose. Grant was talking briskly at the time, his intention being to cover Tremayne’s retreat, which he himself desired. Count Samoval’s smouldering eyes were upon the captain, and full of menace. But he could not be guilty of the rudeness of interrupting Grant or of detaining Captain Tremayne when a lady called him.
CHAPTER XI. THE CHALLENGE
Rebuke awaited Captain Tremayne at the hands of Lady O’Moy, and it came as soon as they were alone together sauntering in the thicket of pine and cork-oak on the slope of the hill below the terrace.
“How thoughtless of you, Ned, to provoke Count Samoval at such a time as this!”
“Did I provoke him? I thought it was the Count himself who was provoking.” Tremayne spoke lightly.
“But suppose anything were to happen to you? You know the man’s dreadful reputation.”
Tremayne looked at her kindly. This apparent concern for himself touched him. “My dear Una, I hope I can take care of myself, even against so formidable a fellow; and after all a man must take his chances a soldier especially.”
“But what of Dick?” she cried. “Do you forget that he is depending entirely upon you — that if you should fail him he will be lost?” And there was something akin to indignation in the protesting eyes she turned upon him.
For a moment Tremayne was so amazed that he was at a loss for an answer. Then he smiled. Indeed his inclination was to laugh outright. The frank admission that her concern which he had fondly imagined to be for himself was all for Dick betrayed a state of mind that was entirely typical of Una. Never had she been able to command more than one point of view of any question, and that point of view invariably of her own interest. All her life she had been accustomed to sacrifices great and small made by others on her own behalf, until she had come to look upon such sacrifices her absolute right.
“I am glad you reminded me,” he sa
id with an irony that never touched her. “You may depend upon me to be discreetness itself, at least until after Dick has been safely shipped.”
“Thank you, Ned. You are very good to me.” They sauntered a little way in silence. Then: “When does Captain Glennie sail?” she asked him. “Is it decided yet?”
“Yes. I have just heard from him that the Telemachus will put to sea on Sunday morning at two o’clock.”
“At two o’clock in the morning! What an uncomfortable hour!”
“Tides, as King Canute discovered, are beyond mortal control. The Telemachus goes out with the ebb. And, after all, for our purposes surely no hour could be more suitable. If I come for Dick at midnight tomorrow that will just give us time to get him snugly aboard before she sails. I have made all arrangements with Glennie. He believes Dick to be what he has represented himself — one of Bearsley’s overseers named Jenkinson, who is a friend of mine and who must be got out of the country quietly. Dick should thank his luck for a good deal. My chief anxiety was lest his presence here should be discovered by any one.”
“Beyond Bridget not a soul knows that he is here not even Sylvia.”
“You have been the soul of discreetness.”
“Haven’t I?” she purred, delighted to have him discover a virtue so unusual in her.
Thereafter they discussed details; or, rather, Tremayne discussed them. He would come up to Monsanto at twelve o’clock to-morrow night in a curricle in which he would drive Dick down to the river at a point where a boat would be waiting to take him out to the Telemachus. She must see that Dick was ready in time. The rest she could safely leave to him. He would come in through the official wing of the building. The guard would admit him without question, accustomed to seeing him come and go at all hours, nor would it be remarked that he was accompanied by a man in civilian dress when he departed. Dick was to be let down from her ladyship’s balcony to the quadrangle by a rope ladder with which Tremayne would come equipped, having procured it for the purpose from the Telemachus.
She hung upon his arm, overwhelming him now with her gratitude, her parasol sheltering them both from the rays of the sun as they emerged from the thicket intro the meadowland in full view of the terrace where Count Samoval and Sir Terence were at that moment talking earnestly together.
You will remember that O’Moy had undertaken to provide that Count Samoval’s visits to Monsanto should be discontinued. About this task he had gone with all the tact of which he had boasted himself master to Colquhoun Grant. You shall judge of the tact for yourself. No sooner had the colonel left for Lisbon, and Carruthers to return to his work, than, finding himself alone with the Count, Sir Terence considered the moment a choice one in which to broach the matter.
“I take it ye’re fond of walking, Count,” had been his singular opening move. They had left the table by now, and were sauntering together on the terrace.
“Walking?” said Samoval. “I detest it.”
“And is that so? Well, well! Of course it’s not so very far from your place at Bispo.”
“Not more than half-a-league, I should say.”
“Just so,” said O’Moy. “Half-a-league there, and half-a-league back: a league. It’s nothing at all, of course; yet for a gentleman who detests walking it’s a devilish long tramp for nothing.”
“For nothing?” Samoval checked and looked at his host in faint surprise. Then he smiled very affably. “But you must not say that, Sir Terence. I assure you that the pleasure of seeing yourself and Lady O’Moy cannot be spoken of as nothing.”
“You are very good.” Sir Terence was the very quintessence of courtliness, of concern for the other. “But if there were not that pleasure?”
“Then, of course, it would be different.” Samoval was beginning to be slightly intrigued.
“That’s it,” said Sir Terence. “That’s just what I’m meaning.”
“Just what you’re meaning? But, my dear General, you are assuming circumstances which fortunately do not exist.”
“Not at present, perhaps. But they might.”
Again Samoval stood still and looked at O’Moy. He found something in the bronzed, rugged face that was unusually sardonic. The blue eyes seemed to have become hard, and yet there were wrinkles about their corners suggestive of humour that might be mockery. The Count stiffened; but beyond that he preserved his outward calm whilst confessing that he did not understand Sir Terence’s meaning.
“It’s this way,” said Sir Terence. “I’ve noticed that ye’re not looking so very well lately, Count.”
“Really? You think that?” The words were mechanical. The dark eyes continued to scrutinise that bronzed face suspiciously.
“I do, and it’s sorry I am to see it. But I know what it is. It’s this walking backwards and forwards between here and Bispo that’s doing the mischief. Better give it up, Count. Better not come toiling up here any more. It’s not good for your health. Why, man, ye’re as white as a ghost this minute.”
He was indeed, having perceived at last the insult intended. To be denied the house at such a time was to checkmate his designs, to set a term upon his crafty and subtle espionage, precisely in the season when he hoped to reap its harvest. But his chagrin sprang not at all from that. His cold anger was purely personal. He was a gentleman — of the fine flower, as he would have described himself — of the nobility of Portugal; and that a probably upstart Irish soldier — himself, from Samoval’s point of view, a guest in that country — should deny him his house, and choose such terms of ill-considered jocularity in which to do it, was an affront beyond all endurance.
For a moment passion blinded him, and it was only by an effort that he recovered and kept his self-control. But keep it he did. You may trust your practised duellist for that when he comes face to face with the necessity to demand satisfaction. And soon the mist of passion clearing from his keen wits, he sought swiftly for a means to fasten the quarrel upon Sir Terence in Sir Terence’s own coin of galling mockery. Instantly he found it. Indeed it was not very far to seek. O’Moy’s jealousy, which was almost a byword, as we know, had been apparent more than once to Samoval. Remembering it now, it discovered to him at once Sir Terence’s most vulnerable spot, and cunningly Samoval proceeded to gall him there.
A smile spread gradually over his white face — a smile of immeasurable malice.
“I am having a very interesting and instructive morning in this atmosphere of Irish boorishness,” said he. “First Captain Tremayne—”
“Now don’t be after blaming old Ireland for Tremayne’s shortcomings. Tremayne’s just a clumsy mannered Englishman.”
“I am glad to know there is a distinction. Indeed I might have perceived it for myself. In motives, of course, that distinction is great indeed, and I hope that I am not slow to discover it, and in your case to excuse it. I quite understand and even sympathise with your feelings, General.”
“I am glad of that now,” said Sir Terence, who had understood nothing of all this.
“Naturally,” the Count pursued on a smooth, level note of amiability, “when a man, himself no longer young, commits the folly of taking a young and charming wife, he is to be forgiven when a natural anxiety drives him to lengths which in another might be resented.” He bowed before the empurpling Sir Terence.
“Ye’re a damned coxcomb, it seems,” was the answering roar.
“Of course you would assume it. It was to be expected. I condone it with the rest. And because I condone it, because I sympathise with what in a man of your age and temperament must amount to an affliction, I hasten to assure you upon my honour that so far as I am concerned there are no grounds for your anxiety.”
“And who the devil asks for your assurances? It’s stark mad ye are to suppose that I ever needed them.”
“Of course you must say that,” Samoval insisted, with a confident and superior smile. He shook his head, his expression one of amused sorrow. “Sir Terence, you have knocked at the wrong door. You are youthful at
least in your impulsiveness, but you are surely as blind as old Pantaloon in the comedy or you would see where your industry would be better employed in shielding your wife’s honour and your own.”
Goaded to fury, his blue eyes aflame now with passion, Sir Terence considered the sleek and subtle gentleman before him, and it was in that moment that the Count’s subtlety soared to its finest heights. In a flash of inspiration he perceived the advantages to be drawn by himself from conducting this quarrel to extremes.
This is not mere idle speculation. Knowledge of the real motives actuating him rests upon the evidence of a letter which Samoval was to write that same evening to La Fleche — afterwards to be discovered — wherein he related what had passed, how deliberately he had steered the matter, and what he meant to do. His object was no longer the punishing of an affront. That would happen as a mere incident, a thing done, as it were, in passing. His real aim now was to obtain the keys of the adjutant’s strong-box, which never left Sir Terence’s person, and so become possessed of the plans of the lines of Torres Vedras. When you consider in the light of this the manner in which Samoval proceeded now you will admire with me at once the opportunism and the subtlety of the man.
“You’ll be after telling me exactly what you mean,” Sir Terence had said.
It was in that moment that Tremayne and Lady O’Moy came arm in arm into the open on the hill-side, half-a-mile away — very close and confidential. They came most opportunely to the Count’s need, and he flung out a hand to indicate them to Sir Terence, a smile of pity on his lips.
“You need but to look to take the answer for yourself,” said he.
Sir Terence looked, and laughed. He knew the secret of Ned Tremayne’s heart and could laugh now with relish at that which hitherto had left him darkly suspicious.
“And who shall blame Lady O’Moy?” Count Samoval pursued. “A lady so charming and so courted must seek her consolation for the almost unnatural union Fate has imposed upon her. Captain Tremayne is of her own age, convenient to her hand, and for an Englishman not ill-looking.”
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 323
